Give me a break. No two people suffer the same with M.S. I cannot tolerate any kind of motion and Ann is helped by motion of riding her horse. What works for one MS patient most likely will not work for another. Most M.S. drugs are dangerous and shorting life span while shortening relapse. I opt out for 30 years. I have not seen my Neurologist for over a year because he has nothing to offer me.

New MS drug effective but expensive...Multiple sclerosis: New drug 'most effective'1 November 2012 - MS attacks nerves in the brain and spinal cord

A new drug is the "most effective" treatment for relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis, say UK researchers. During MS the body's immune system turns on its own nerves causing debilitating muscle problems. Researchers at the University of Cambridge say a cancer drug, which wipes out and resets the immune system, has better results than other options.

However, there is concern that a drugs company is about to increase the cost of the drug as a result. Around 100,000 people in the UK have multiple sclerosis. When the condition is diagnosed most will have a form of the disease know as relapsing-remitting MS, in which the symptoms can almost disappear for a time, before suddenly returning.

Built from scratch

The researchers tested a leukaemia drug, alemtuzumab, which had shown benefits for MS in small studies. In leukaemia, a blood cancer, it controls the excess production of white blood cells. In MS patients, the dose eliminates the immune cells entirely, forcing a new immune system to be built from scratch which should not attack the nerves. Two trials, published in the Lancet medical journal, compared the effectiveness of alemtuzumab with a first-choice drug, interferon beta-1a. One compared the effectiveness in patients given the drug after being diagnosed, the other looked at patients given the drug after other treatments had failed. Both showed the drug was around 50% more effective at preventing relapses and patients had less disability at the end of the study than when they started.

Dr Alasdair Coles, from the University of Cambridge, said: "Although other MS drugs have emerged over the last year, which is certainly good news for patients, none has shown superior effects on disability when compared to interferon except alemtuzumab." He told the BBC: "It is certainly the most effective MS drug, based on these clinical trials, but this is definitely not a cure." However, he warned there were side-effects. These include developing other immune disorders. He said he thought the drug would be most useful for patients for whom standard treatment had failed and in a "minority" of patients as a first-choice drug. Eventually relapsing-remitting MS can become progressive MS as the good spells become shorter and less frequent. The drug will have no effect on this form of the disease.

Optical Coherence Tomography can reveal the extent of MS...Simple eye scan can reveal extent of Multiple Sclerosis24 December 2012 - The retina sits at the back of the eye and houses the cells that provide us with vision

A simple eye test may offer a fast and easy way to monitor patients with multiple sclerosis (MS), medical experts say in the journal Neurology. Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) is a scan that measures the thickness of the lining at the back of the eye - the retina. It takes a few minutes per eye and can be performed in a doctor's surgery. In a trial involving 164 people with MS, those with thinning of their retina had earlier and more active MS. The team of researchers from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine say larger trials with a long follow up are needed to judge how useful the test might be in everyday practice. The latest study tracked the patients' disease progression over a two-year period.

Unpredictable disease

Multiple sclerosis is an illness that affects the nerves in the brain and spinal cord causing problems with muscle movement, balance and vision. In MS, the protective sheath or layer around nerves, called myelin, comes under attack which, in turn, leaves the nerves open to damage. There are different types of MS - most people with the condition have the relapsing remitting type where the symptoms come and go over days, weeks or months. Usually after a decade or so, half of patients with this type of MS will develop secondary progressive disease where the symptoms get gradually worse and there are no or very few periods of remission.

Another type of MS is primary progressive disease where symptoms get worse from the outset. There is no cure but treatments can help slow disease progression. It can be difficult for doctors to monitor MS because it has a varied course and can be unpredictable. Brain scans can reveal inflammation and scarring, but it is not clear how early these changes might occur in the disease and whether they accurately reflect ongoing damage. Scientists have been looking for additional ways to track MS, and believe OCT may be a contender.

Using one's own skin cells to treat MS...Skin 'may restore' diseased MS brain8 February 2013 - It may be possible to use a patient's own skin to repair the damage caused by multiple sclerosis (MS), which is currently incurable, say researchers.

Nerves struggle to communicate in MS as their insulating covering is attacked by the immune system - causing fatigue and damaging movement. Animal tests, described in the journal Cell Stem Cell, have now used modified skin cells to repair the insulation. Experts said there was an "urgent need" for such therapies. Just like electrical wires, nerves have insulation - but instead of plastic, the body uses a protein called myelin. However, diseases that result in damage to the myelin, including MS, leave the nerves exposed and electrical signals struggle to travel round the body.

Stem cells

A team of scientists at the University of Rochester Medical Center, in the US, used advances in stem-cell research to attempt to repair the myelin. They took a sample of human skin cells and converted it into stem cells, which are capable of becoming any other type of cell in the body. The next step was to transform the stem cells into immature versions of cells in the brain that produce myelin. When these cells had been injected into mice born without any myelin it had had a significant effect, said researchers.

Dr Steven Goldman told the BBC that "myelin was produced throughout the nervous system" and some mice had achieved "normal life spans". He said: "In MS the underlying nerves fibres are still there, the objective is to re-myelinate them." However, MS patients would still have the problem of their immune system attacking their myelin. Any treatment would need to be used alongside other therapies to tame the immune system - or would need to be repeatedly performed. Dr Goldman said he could see "no reason to be pessimistic" although further safety tests would be needed and the technique still needed to be refined before being used in people. He expects to begin trials within a couple of years.

Dr Emma Gray, from the MS Society, said: "Myelin repair therapies are urgently needed in MS and we're pleased to see researchers have been able to generate myelin making cells from human stem cells. "This is still very early stage research, but with more development could one day be used to repair damage to myelin in people with MS. We look forward to seeing more research in this promising area."

Scientists discover inherited MS gene...Scientists discover an inherited gene for MSWed, 01 Jun 2016 - Scientists say they have found a gene that causes a rare but inherited form of multiple sclerosis.

It affects about one in every thousand MS patients and, according to the Canadian researchers, is proof that the disease is passed down generations. Experts have long suspected there's a genetic element to MS, but had thought there would be lots of genes involved, as well as environmental factors. The finding offers hope of targeted screening and therapy, Neuron reports. The University of British Columbia studied the DNA of hundreds of families affected by MS to hunt for a culprit gene. They found it in two sets of families containing several members with a rapidly progressive type of MS. In these families, 70% of the people with the mutation developed the disease.

Although other factors may still be important and necessary to trigger the disease process, the gene itself is a substantial causative risk factor that is passed down from parents to their children, say the researchers. The mutation is in a gene called NR1H3, which makes a protein that acts as a switch controlling inflammation. In MS the body's immune system mistakenly attacks the protective layer of myelin that surrounds nerve fibres in the brain and spinal cord, leading to muscle weakness and other symptoms. Studies in mice show that knocking out the function of the same gene leads to neurological problems and decreased myelin production.

Computer sequence of DNA​

The researchers believe stopping the inflammation early might prevent or delay the disease. They already have drugs in mind that might do this by targeting the NR1H3 gene pathway. These drugs are in development for other diseases, including cardiovascular disease and diabetes. Researcher Dr Carles Vilarino-Guell said: "These are still early days and there is a lot to test, but if we are able to repurpose some of these experimental drugs, it could shorten the time it takes to develop targeted MS treatments." He said the same treatments might help other patients with progressive MS - even if they don't have exactly the same gene mutation.

Dr Sorrel Bickley from the MS Society said understanding how genes influence a person's risk of developing MS is a really important area of research. "Whilst the gene variant identified was associated with rapidly progressing forms of MS in the two families studied, the variant itself is rare and most people with MS won't have it. This research does however give us an insight into how progressive forms of MS develop, which could help to inform the development of new treatments in the future."

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